Detroit, MI
Greg Landry, former Detroit Lions quarterback and assistant coach, dead at 77
Greg Landry, the former Detroit Lions quarterback and assistant coach, has died. He was 77.
The Lions announced Landry’s death on social media Friday. No cause of death was given.
“We join the NFL community in mourning the loss of former Lions quarterback and coach Greg Landry,” the team said in its posting.
Landry played in the NFL from 1968 to 1981 with the Lions and then-Baltimore Colts. After two seasons in the USFL, he returned to the NFL and played one game with the Chicago Bears. He threw for 16,052 yards in his NFL career with 98 touchdowns and 103 interceptions. He was also one of the best running quarterbacks in NFL history, gaining more than 2,600 yards with 21 TDs.
The Lions selected Landry with the 11th pick of the 1968 NFL draft out of Massachusetts. He played 11 seasons with the Lions, and had a career record of 40-41-3 with Detroit. His finest season in Detroit came in 1971, when the threw for 2,237 yards and 16 touchdowns and was a first-team All-Pro and made his only Pro Bowl.
In 1976, he earned the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year award after passing for 2,191 yards and 17 TDs.
Landry was traded to Baltimore and played three seasons with the Colts, going 3-10-1. He then moved to the USFL and played one season each with the Chicago Blitz (1983) and the Arizona Wranglers (1984). He was an emergency starter for the Bears — against Detroit — in 1984.
Landry rejoined the Lions in 1995 as quarterbacks coach on the staff of head coach Wayne Fontes. Landry also held assistant coaching positions with Cleveland and Chicago in the NFL and at the college level at Illinois.
From Nashua, New Hampshire, Landry led UMass in passing for three seasons and was the team’s top rusher and scorer in 1965 and 1967. He was inducted into the UMass Hall of Fame in 1980.
Detroit, MI
PWHL players bond with women’s hockey pioneers at Detroit clinic | NHL.com
Both generations on the ice Friday are intent on growing the game for today’s kids. Hartje and the Polar Bears believe an important step for women’s hockey in Michigan would be starting a Division I college team.
“I think if the PWHL establishes a team in Detroit, it will put a lot of pressure on the colleges to make sure there’s a D-I team in the state,” Hartje said. “Michigan has the second-highest number of players in the league, and it would have been a dream for us to be able to stay in the state to play.”
It’s been a problem for decades. Pierson had to turn down the offer from Boston University, because her family couldn’t afford to send her to New England for college. Hartje ended up at Yale University, and Megan Keller, who scored the gold medal winning goal for the U.S. in the 2026 Winter Olympics and plays for the PWHL’s Boston Fleet, went from suburban Detroit to Boston College.
Meanwhile, 2026 U.S. men’s Olympic team members and Michigan natives Dylan Larkin of the Red Wings and Zach Werenski of the Columbus Blue Jackets were able to stay in the state to play with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, then based in Ann Arbor, before moving on to the University of Michigan in the same town.
“Megan’s brother played at Michigan State, and I’m sure she also would have stayed here to play for a Michigan school,” Skarupa said. “It’s imperative that Michigan gets a college program.”
Skarupa is serious about growing the game. She is working with Keller and the NHL Foundation U.S. to identify recipients for its $100,000 Empowerment Grant Program for Girls Hockey.
“Every time I go back to a city, there are new teams, new girls and new faces,” she said. “It’s a testament to growth all over the world, but it is tremendous inside the U.S.”
Detroit, MI
Retired Detroit sergeant faces new sexual assault charge involving 14-year-old victim from 2002
An additional case, this one involving a victim who was then 14 years old, has been added to the sexual assault investigation against a former Detroit Police Department sergeant.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announced the latest charges on Friday against Benjamin Martin Wagner, 68, who now lives in Greenville, N.C. He had retired from the Detroit Police Department in 2017.
The victim in the additional charges was 14 years old when the assault happened in October 2002 in Detroit, Worthy said. The prosecutor alleges that Wagner approached the victim, pointed a handgun at her, ordered her away from the location and then sexually assaulted her.
In this case, he faces charges of kidnapping, two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. An arraignment hearing took place Friday in the 36th District Court in Detroit. A probable cause conference is scheduled for April 7.
The woman is now 37 years old.
“She has lived with what happened to her for 23 years and has now bravely decided that she wants to be a part of holding him accountable,” Worthy said.
Wagner participated in a court hearing Thursday and was remanded to jail, one week after he was charged with 15 counts of kidnapping and rape in five separate sexual assault cases. All of those incidents happened between 1999 and 2003 in the northwest side of Detroit, with the victims being young women between the ages of 15 and 23.
The court dates for the earlier list of charges are April 7 for a probable cause hearing and April 14 for a preliminary exam.
Wagner joined the Detroit Police Department in 1989 as a police officer and was eventually promoted to sergeant. He retired in 2017 and moved to North Carolina.
Detroit, MI
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